The official blog of Jeff Seymour, author of the collection of magical realist short stories Three Dances and the epic fantasy novel Soulwoven. Updated Mondays and Fridays.

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Friday, March 21, 2014

Easter Eggs

When I was a kid, I used to hunt for Easter eggs a lot.

Not just the plastic kind my parents used to stuff with jelly beans and chocolate (though I did that too, and loved it). I hunted for the kind that video game developers left in their games. I hunted for them in books too, though I didn't know to call them that at the time.

The term "Easter egg" in that context refers to a little prize or extra feature hidden in a book or game (or other form of media). Wikipedia's got a pretty good definition going. The hunt for Easter eggs in games with vibrant communities tends to be a pretty exhaustive affair, with players combing the game en masse and compiling lists for others. People do it in books too.

Soulwoven has a few. Not a ton, but they're in there. I won't spoil them all, but I'll give you one to start out with in case you're a dedicated egg hunter. Turn to page 341 (about halfway through Chapter 47 for those of you with the e-book). Read this poem, which I did while writing the book. Ta-da!

More interesting ones have to do with hints at what's coming in the next book. Once you've read Exile, come back and have a look at Chapter 24. It's stacked with 'em.

Y'know, it occurs to me that with the advent of e-books, we could be doing a lot more in terms of Easter eggs with the application of a little clever HTML. In fact, someone cleverer than me probably already is.

Hmm. Food for the mysterious machine in my brain that crunches ideas and turns them into books. Wonder what I can do with it.

Anyway, happy spring! And if you celebrate Easter, either with church or with bunnies and jelly beans, I hope you enjoy it. A month from now, which you wouldn't know from the displays in my grocery store.